*Click!* With a crisp snap, the full-face masks of the superpower mechas slid shut in unison.
This time, beneath his transparent visor, Lei Ting activated a specialized combat function: the "Auxiliary Eye," its lenses and glow as crimson as fresh blood.
The Auxiliary Eye was a visual combat enhancement, installed only on specific military helmets or visors. Its hardware sat between the visor and the naked eye and was only permitted for use during active combat. It served a single purpose: to cross-reference data from an internal database and highlight the weaknesses of enemies within the user's field of vision.
It was a remarkable feature, powered by big data and the Star Net, and it was constantly updated. Every time soldiers using the Auxiliary Eye encountered a new enemy, a complete set of execution—or rather, "disposal"—protocols would be transmitted to everyone’s Auxiliary Eyes via the various Legions' main and sub-AIs within a few days.
Of course, the Auxiliary Eye came with strict requirements.
A mental strength of Grade B or higher, along with mature, stable, and decisive combat skills, were the baseline. Beyond that, users had to pass several self-control assessments, ranging from the ability to manage manic emotions to resisting temptation. They also had to maintain rational thinking over long periods without completely discarding their emotional sensibilities.
Because the Auxiliary Eye’s workflow required the participation of the user’s personal mental strength, the blood-red, data-saturated vision could easily inflict psychological trauma.
This technology had been developed during the Third General War and was one of the bargaining chips the Human Federation used to regain the upper hand. However, the initial version had caused semi-permanent or even permanent mental distortion in many combatants. To this day, a few veterans remained in Federation military sanatoriums because of it.
In battle, the Auxiliary Eye required ten seconds of preheating.
During these ten seconds, it used the mental strength provided by the user to comb through its entire internal dataset before it could be used normally. Once activated, it consumed mental strength regardless of whether the analysis function was actively being used.
Average users could not keep the Auxiliary Eye preheated for long. Thus, a superpower warrior’s proficiency with the Auxiliary Eye was a vital metric of their skill.
For Lei Ting, however, the situation was different.
He could keep the Auxiliary Eye in a preheated state indefinitely. After all, the rate at which it consumed his mental strength was slower than the rate at which he recovered it.
Such power was truly enviable. Especially since this "Double S" had never displayed the terrifying madness seen in previous "Double S" individuals. He appeared disciplined, polite, stable, reliable, and healthy.
Consequently, because he seemed to have paid no great price for his power, he was all the more envied.
Only the ships of superpower mecha pilots did not require repulsion barriers to separate the seating from the external environment. Legion Commander Valianna reached out and grabbed her heavy, coffin-like folding weapon, using her touch and energy saturation to establish a deeper connection with it.
Lei Ting knew that almost everyone in the cabin was looking at him, but he simply spaced out for a moment while the Auxiliary Eye preheated. Then, following the instructions of a synthetic female voice in his earpiece—different from "Wangshu"—he began his own preparations.
The composition of this team had already been transmitted to his standard-issue light computer by that female voice, the "Xihe" intelligent system.
Thirty-three superpower mecha pilots, plus Lei Ting and Legion Commander Valianna, totaling thirty-five people. Among them, twenty-five were Assault-types, including Valianna and Lei Ting. The rest consisted of four Special-types and six Logistics-types.
Lei Ting skimmed the personal information they were permitted to share, then mentally planned the coordinated tactics he might use in various scenarios.
Their mission was to board a small satellite-class giant ship occupied by the Abomination Legion and destroy it from the core. Only then could they be certain that the "fish" would be lured out by the heat—heat intense enough to melt a spaceship.
Everything after that would be simple. The intense negative emotional feedback would cause the target to cling to them relentlessly until it and its guards were lured into the net, where they would be sliced into a "full-fish banquet" on the spot.
However, considering this target’s ability to burrow into the defenses of the Orion Nebula, its heat absorption must be incredibly high. Exactly how the Legion intended to deal with it remained a mystery to Lei Ting.
***
After several jumps, the ship bypassed the beacon force fields left by the advance scout units and arrived near the designated target.
The target location was relatively close to the Orion Nebula—though still quite far in absolute terms. The average temperature was approximately four hundred degrees Celsius, and no enemies were currently present.
The Abomination Legion lacked the worldly intelligence required for setting ambushes.
"Attention, mission target detected ahead," the primary and two secondary pilots reported to the superpowered individuals on board. "Preheating laser cutters to enter the target body. Vanguard Team, please prepare for deployment..."
Vanguard One was, naturally, Legion Commander Valianna. Vanguard Two was Lei Ting. Following them were two Assault-type mecha pilots and one Special-type.
The Vanguard Team bore the heaviest pressure during frontline deployment and usually did not include Logistics or Special-types. The reason a Special-type was included this time was because her superpower was the utterly illogical "Trace Erasure." When playing cat-and-mouse with the enemy, she could allow the team to sneak up behind them undetected.
But right now, Lei Ting’s focus was on...
...Laser cutting?
He frowned, pondering the term usually associated with asteroid mining, and felt a strange premonition. Of course, this premonition did not slow his preparations.
*BOOM!!* The ship’s hull lurched violently.
None of the superpowered individuals questioned it, and neither did Lei Ting. Everyone knew that a dark-red abomination, shaped like a space squid, had just brushed past the hull. Its tentacles had lashed out at the ship, attempting to bind the iron shell that contained dozens of powerful life signatures, but the ship had broken free with ease, severing three or four tentacles in the process. Crimson liquid sprayed from the stumps, floating into red spheres in the vacuum of space, where they were quickly boiled by the high temperature, writhing like living things.
Ahead, a massive swarm of grotesque abominations of all sizes had gathered. The moment the ship entered their sensory range, those with heads and eyes turned in unison, while those built for all-out combat charged directly at the vessel.
*Vrrr—*
The ship charged into the swarm without swerving. A layer of silver-blue shielding with irregular, thorn-like fluctuations flickered to life around the hull. Any abomination that struck it exploded into a mist of flesh and blood.
Simultaneously, the structures protected by layers of armor on the top and bottom of the ship quietly deployed. The muzzles glowed with blue light as they began to charge.
Lei Ting knew that shield was Valianna’s power. Her eyes glowed with silver-blue light as she stood up expressionless, her weapon on her back. She walked to the airlock and said, "Vanguard, prepare to engage."
In an instant, the small ship tore through the churning black-red mist of space and slammed directly into a colossal aggregate of metallic and non-metallic matter!
Sound does not travel in a vacuum, but it does travel through matter. Lei Ting clearly heard the ship’s fully charged laser cannons emit a heavy *thump*.
Then, a hole was blasted into the metallic aggregate at point-blank range.
The ship maintained the energy output of the four muzzles, following the beam through the melting and rapidly cooling metal hole, entering as if into an uninhabited land.
Lei Ting, standing beside Valianna: "..."
Lei Ting: "."
*So this is how you people use mining equipment?!!! This metal that can withstand thousands of degrees must feel so miserable in your hands! If you weren't afraid of burning your own boarding party, would you have just sprayed thermite to melt a path?!*
The airlock slowly opened, and dim, flickering lights drifted in from the world outside. But along with them came the terrifying aura of abomination creatures.
Valianna leaped out before the hatch had even fully opened. "Go!"
At some point, the metallic cubes that sparkled like a cluster of stars had begun to float around Lei Ting. Without a word, he followed Valianna and jumped. He found himself in the hangar of a giant, silver-white warship. Black-red networks of abomination flesh crawled across every surface. On the far wall was a colorless emblem nearly a hundred meters high; it seemed the material used in its construction was invisible to human sight, and it was now mostly shrouded by fleshy tentacles.
After a calm glance, the golden light in Lei Ting’s eyes flickered. A dense golden mist emerged around him, within which the metallic starlight circled and darted. His heavy greatsword blocked the sharp limb of an abomination behind him before he gripped the hilt.
A blue-purple, reddish glow ignited. The large, irregular Virgo Core Gemstone embedded in "New Sun" performed its duty faithfully, perfectly converting and amplifying his power. On the back of his pitch-black superpower mecha gauntlets, two purple shuttle-cut gems also lit up—
*Slash!!!*
Light swirled as the blue-purple radiance trailed crimson flames through the air. The abomination’s scarlet blood sprayed everywhere as the enemy attacking him was cleaved in two in a single encounter.
Flashes of various colors, along with the monster’s corpse, crashed into the swarm of hundreds of creatures behind it. The metallic stars transformed into sharp shuttle-spikes, orbiting him in distinct trajectories, allowing him to charge into the horde like a storm.
This was the result of the multi-threaded operation practice he had never ceased since the beginning of the school term.
Did anyone really think he would do something just for the sake of looking cool?
That was, of course, impossible.
From the very beginning, those orbiting metallic cubes were never just cubes—they were his sword, his shield, his guards, and his bullets!
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
辅眼 | Auxiliary Eye | A combat HUD enhancement that highlights enemy weaknesses but strains the user's mind.
羲和 | Xihe | The intelligent AI system of the fleet, named after the Chinese solar deity.
望舒 | Wangshu | An intelligent AI system mentioned previously, named after the Chinese lunar deity.
新太阳 | New Sun | Lei Ting's signature weapon, a greatsword.
冠军 | Champion | Legion Commander Valianna's weapon or mecha.
憎恶军团 | Abomination Legion | The antagonistic force consisting of grotesque, parasitic creatures.
室女座核心宝石 | Virgo Core Gemstone | A powerful energy-amplifying gem embedded in Lei Ting's weapon.
痕迹消除 | Trace Erasure | A specific superpower that allows for stealth by removing physical or energy traces.
